


Dog Days

by gardnerhill



Series: Cats and Dogs Living Together [12]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, Cat Sherlock Holmes, Community: watsons_woes, Dog John, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 14:44:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11382342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: Some jobs have pleasant side-effects.





	Dog Days

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2017 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #2, **Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.** Your prompt for today is: Summer in the city.

Hot days are terrible for dogs – they’re bad for any animals covered in fur that can only expel heat by panting hard. Even well-owned pet dogs suffer; I’ve seen the poor little fellows whimpering as their pads hit the hot sidewalk and black animals whining as the heat intensifies. Fleas jump for joy and feed at will. Water is all that’s craved, even more than food. Kind humans leave water out for the strays but not enough of them do so, and even the little hot water in such dishes can be scuffled over.

 

The heat had been this terrible in the place where I’d served my human. But there I had been kept and owned, petted and fed and given water to drink. Here, I was alone; my owner far away in a human hospital, and me alone and adrift in the city with only fleas and ticks to touch me. The heat seemed worse because of the loneliness; and the thirst very much worse.

 

None of these rules seemed to apply to my alley-partner Shock. Cats don’t seem to need water, or they can subsist on the moisture in their prey. While I was huffing in our stuffy alley (still better than the blazing heat of full day outside the alley), the rag-earred black tomcat washed himself or stretched over a skip-lid to his full length and dozed the stifling days away. I envied him even more than I loathed his feline advantage over me.

 

Nights were a little better – I’d go out looking for a dish that might have some water, or venture to the park and risk the brute feral dogs that ruled the pond there (and come galloping back to safety, half-mauled and still parched); a three-legged war-wounded creature like myself was no match for them. The temperature would at least cool to bearable, but it was hard to rest with Shock caterwauling on the skip and receiving yowls back from the other cats and dogs on his alleyway network.

 

“We have a case, Army dog,” Shock said one mid-morning, about three days into the heat.

 

I couldn’t think about work. All I wanted was not to move, and hope I didn’t die of thirst or heat. “Congratulations, partner. Go be brilliant.”

 

“You’re coming too. I need muscle, and someone good at worrying vermin.”

 

Vermin? I bared my teeth in distaste over my panting mouth. That didn’t mean mice or Shock would take care of that himself. Rat-catching was too hot and nasty for this weather. And “muscle” meant Shock would need me to run fast and far holding or carrying him once he’d done something to anger faster animals. “Too hot. Let the rats do their work and we can get them when it’s cooler.”

 

“I fully plan to. This is a human eating place with a rat problem.”

 

A human eating-place –

 

I scrambled to my remaining three feet. “I’m your dog. Where do we go?”

 

I scarcely felt the thump as the cat landed atop my back. “I’ll tell you where.”

 

So that was how we went, me hop-hobbling along on my three legs and the cat directing me to the source of the problem picked up from one of his contacts.

 

The building smelled of food and rats and cat and water. It was locked tight and would not open until the end of day, if no one went in and out as they did for other eating-places nearby.  At Shock’s direction, I walked into the alley along the building’s wall.

 

A waft of cool air turned my head up to a partially-open first-story window, where a small white cat hissed at my appearance. I growled; not even being partnered with a cat could stop my automatic response to the creatures.

 

“You need help, Leo, and we’re the help,” Shock called up in the same tone.

 

“Does it have to be a Bast-damned dog?” snapped the little cat; I could hear how young he was, and his lack of male smell let me know he was neutered as was I. “And a cat-worrier at that?”

 

“If you don’t like it you can get blamed and thrown out by your owners for not stopping the rats.” Shock was as careless-sounding as he always did. But I felt the very slight touch of air from his waving tail on my back. He was angry for my sake, though he’d never admit it.

 

“They’re idiots,” Leo snapped. “Those damn rats are bigger than I am, and the humans here expect me to keep them all in check by myself!”

 

“Which is why you called for help last night, was it not?”

 

Leo’s ears went back – not in anger but humiliation. He was full of braggart youth, unable to submit with dignity to an older, bigger cat. “How do we get the cat-killer in here?”

 

For a moment Shock felt heavier on my back and then he was gone, clinging to the bricks with his claws and scrabbling up to the windowsill to join Leo. “That’s why you need us. Let me show you how the back door works.” Both black and white cats disappeared from my sight.

 

I trotted around to the back of the building, where a big door stood closed, and waited. This wasn’t the first time my cat partner had let me into a human building. I heard the scrabbles and scratches at the metal door from the other side, and then the click as the door opened. And the first thing I felt was the cool air coming out of that building.

 

I walked in and panted for pure relief at the dark cool building. A human eating-place meant cool rooms to keep the food safe for people.

 

I followed both cats into the kitchen. Shock sprang up on the counter and pawed at a spigot. Water came out. My head was in the sink a second later, and I was lapping at the cool delicious stuff. What I didn’t drink splashed on my face and muzzle; it was the best I’d felt in days. I finally pulled my head out and shook in bliss, ignoring the hisses and cursing from both cats.

 

“Rats, Army dog,” Shock reminded me, washing one paw (and wiping my sprayed water from his face).

 

Smells move better in hot air, but even in this cool room the rodent smell was unmistakeable – not as sour and nasty as mice, but the distinct signature of well-fed rats. The water was still running out of the spigot, making a pleasant sound (that would cover our own sounds and even our scents a little).

 

The smell was strongest in a storage room below, and lesser so in a cold room behind a closed door here. Without a word I hobbled down the stairs to an even cooler room. I already liked this job.

 

I didn’t hear Shock and Leo entering the room past the rustles, chitters and the sound of water. But when the rats started swearing and dashing across my path yelling in fear at the silent dash of the cats, I set to work.

 

Street rats are thinner and faster than creatures who’ve gotten fat and careless on poorly-protected human stores. I could have gorged in five minutes had I not lost my appetite from the heat. As it was, I killed to my heart’s content without stirring from one spot, and heard the squeals and tearing sounds as Shock and Leo dealt with their own combatants. While the cats had to do more work to dispatch their opponents, one good clamp from my jaws, and possibly a quick hard shake, serviced for me. After days and days of doing nothing in the heat, this slaughter suited me right down to the bones and teeth I’d inherited from the first wolf.

 

“Enough!” Shock called. I stopped immediately; it wasn’t the first time my cat partner had taken advantage of my human training. We had spent less than an hour at the work, but rat bodies lay across the storage area, lots and lots of them. “Now for the cold room up there.”

 

I bounded up, tail wagging. My energy and appetite were back.

 

More skillful door-opening from my partner and the big heavy door opened to a blast of icy-cold air. Icy! I dashed into the room – full of shelves of food – and seized the first terrified rat I could find, breaking its neck with one snap and bolting it down with one gulp. Not as many rats were here, but they fled squeaking, only to scream in horror as they ran into two sets of cat claws and teeth. Shock didn’t just kill the rats, he made a high squealing sound in what was likely rat-speak – his knowledge of other languages is profound. I didn’t pay attention otherwise – I was too busy pouncing and throttling and eating.

 

“Enough!”

 

Again I stopped. Even with the ones I’d gobbled down there were still many dead rats in the room.

 

“There,” Shock said. “Your humans will be very happy with you now. So will the people who come here to eat the food. The other rats have been warned off and they won’t stay here long.”

 

“Damn, that dog can kill.” Grudging respect in Leo’s tone. “How do I pay him?”

 

“For a cold room on a hot day, a good drink of water, and a good fresh meal?” Shock leaped onto my back once more. “We’ve been paid in full already. Back to the alley, Army dog.”

 

I hardly noticed the hot air outside as I went out the back door; I’d been refreshed enough that I could weather the rest of the hot day with no difficulty.

 

“So that’s what you were doing those nights.” I hop-hobbled back to our alley. “You found something for us to do that would mean water and cool air.”

 

“Get some sleep, Army dog,” Shock said, clinging to my back. “Tomorrow night we guard the fish-sellers at the market.”


End file.
